Roasted veggies delight kid

For two weeks this summer I made it my mission to improve my eight-year-old son’s tolerance of vegetables.

I called it “veggie boot camp.” He called it torture.

My approach was simple. Every lunch and dinner I prepared at least three vegetables. Of those, he needed to select and consume two of them.

His approach was simple, too. Every lunch and dinner he moaned and complained and ate everything else on his plate first, leaving the dreaded vegetables for last. He’d then painfully and slowly force himself to eat them, often while threatening to mutiny.

Which gives the impression that my son is a horrible eater. Actually, he’s just the opposite. The kid devours sushi, chimichurri, mole ... basically anything with gobs of flavour. He’s an adventurous eater who generally will try nearly anything. He most definitely is not your plain pasta and chicken nugget sort of kid.

Except when it comes to vegetables. For the past year or so, he has tended to get most of his produce in the form of fruit. I lived with it, but this summer decided the easy living was over.

While the vegetable boot camp was hardly a pleasant experience for anyone involved, it did result in real progress. After two weeks, my son now regularly eats vegetables at every lunch and dinner. He doesn’t do it enthusiastically, but he does it. At this point in our lives, I’m good with that.

Early in the process, I found that roasting just about any vegetable dramatically improved my son’s response to it. This makes sense. Roasting concentrates flavours and caramelizes the natural sugars in produce. So to help other parents with veg-averse children, here is one of my son’s favourites (by which, of course, I mean most likely to be gagged down).